FRONTLINESFORUM

BEATTIE’S BENEFITS

HADI MAKTABI

As mentioned in the editorial of HALI 150, Dr Jon Thompson stepped down as the May H. Beattie Fellow for Carpet Studies at Oxford University at the end of 2006, and his successor has yet to be appointed. In this context, the first of the Beattie legacy’s real beneficiaries reflects on the future of the project, and points to the real advances it has already enabled.

1Kurdish Garden carpet

fragment, northwest

Persia, early 19th century.

1.32 x 2.11m (4'4'' x 6'11'').

Sotheby's New York,

14 December 2006, lot 27.

Estimate $12-18,000,

sold for $27,600

JON THOMPSON’S TENURE in Oxford launched the Beattie Archive as the world’s most important dedicated resource for the academic study of carpets. With Emma Dick and Pirjetta Mildh, Dr Thompson has devoted the past six years to cataloguing the tens of thousands of slides and photographs that belonged to the late May H. Beattie. They have also catalogued her library of more than 1,400 books and personal notebooks, and have expanded it by acquisition. The result, in combination with her extensive study collection of oriental rugs, is a very well organised academic archive that caters to the needs of students and researchers in the field of carpet studies. The Beattie project’s profile was raised by hosting conferences such as ‘Carpets and Textiles in the Iranian World, 1400-1700’ (2003), while lecture courses on the history and study of oriental carpets were given for the first time at the University. Carpet studies have gained greater credibility and achieved sounder academic standing in the new millennium due to Oxford’' s active ' carpet study group' . As the first ‘product’ off the assembly line, I feel it would be a great shame for Jon’' s work to be discontinued or downgraded. My recently completed PhD on the history of Persian carpets from 1722-1872 owes much to him, but it equally owes everything to the fabulous opportunity offered by the Beattie Archive, especially its vast intellectual

resources. It would have been difficult to carry out my research elsewhere for the simple reason that the resources are not available. In this context, I would like to draw attention to an under-explored period in Persian carpet history. Scholars and dealers alike seem to think that carpet-weaving went into a grave decline after the end of the Safavid age in 1722. But my research has shown otherwise, and I have identified hundreds of carpets woven in the 150 years separating the Safavid period from the late 19th century exportdriven ‘Revival’. While widely overlooked, such carpets are readily accessible, and it is surprising that no major study of them has been attempted before. I hope to share more of my findings with HALI readers in a future issue, but in the meantime I would like to mention three carpets from ‘my’ period that recently appeared in the Vojtech Blau sale at Sotheby' s, New York on 14 December 2006, and which were covered by my thesis. The first is lot 27, a northwest Persian ‘Garden’ carpetthat sold for $27,600 1. Superficially there seems to be little to link its all-over rectangular compartment design to the Chahar baghdesign prototype exemplified by the Jaipur Garden carpet woven in Kerman in the early 17th century (C.G. Ellis, ‘Garden Carpets and their Relation to Safavid Gardens’, HALI 5/1, 1982, pp.10-17, fig.5),or to the subsequent large-scale Kurdish copies such as the

Kuwait Garden carpet (M. Jenkins, Islamic Art in the Kuwait National Museum, London 1983, pl.143). However a series of rugs survive which demonstrate the steady breakdown of the original design as cruder copies were woven at rural level. The Blau carpetis relatively late and can be safely dated to the first half of the 19th century. Immediate predecessors have a similarly structured field, with repeating compartments, but with a large central panel containing remnants of the central pavilion of the earliest Garden carpets. They include the Orendi carpet (A. Kendrick & C.E.C. Tattersall, Hand-woven Carpets, Oriental and European, London 1922, p.4), and a dismembered rug, previously in the Wher Collection (Ellis, fig.8), of which the upper third was sold at Lefevre in London on 27 April 1979, lot 15, while the lower fragment appears in HALI 84, p.149. Similar 19th century pieces without the central panel to survive include: HALI 70, front cover (MIK, Berlin, no.82,706); HALI 78, p.119; James D. Burns, Antique Rugs of Kurdistan, London 2002, pl.46; and Beattie Archive slide70-0203_ 398, but none shares the Blau rug’s split-leaf arabesque border. This field pattern was repeatedly broken up and re-arranged until it was finally adopted and reinterpreted by the Bakhtiari tribe. The very next lot in the Blau sale was a large northwest Persian gallery carpet 2,that sold for $108,000, a new record for this type at auction

54HALI ISSUE 151
FRONTLINESFORUM

2Northwest Persian kelleh

(left, and inscription detail

above), dated 1222 AH

(1807 AD). 2.67 x 5.69m

(8'9'' x 18'8''). Sotheby's

New York, 14 December

2006, lot 28. Estimate $100

150,000, sold for $108,000

3Bijar prayer rug (right,

and inscription detail

above), west Persia, ca.

1850. 1.09 x 1.83m (3'7''

x 6'0''). Sotheby's New York,

14 December 2006, lot 103.

Estimate $20-30,000,

sold for $144,000

(see HALI 134, p.132). This rug, however, stands above others of its ilk for various reasons. First, it is inscribed with the hijridate 1222 (1807-8),making it a benchmark for related pieces. Second, it is well provenanced, having belonged to theSwedish collector C.J. Lamm, and been published by F.R. Martin in 1908 (A History of Oriental Carpets before 1800, pl.23), even though it technically belongsto the post-1800 period. It is one of only three known rugs of this design type with an ivoryfield (the others are SLO, 11 December 1991, lot 259, and RB, 19 May 2001, lot 71). Its drawing and balanced spacing are finer than the other examples. The field design, also seen on a 17th/18th century jufti-knotted Khorasan carpet (SLO, 20 September 2006, lot 228), is a variant of the allover lattice patterns that were very popular in 18th and 19th century Persia. Similar carpets with the palmette-and-leaf border wereproduced, mostly with yellow fields (e.g. CNY, 30 September 1997, lot 282; and 13 December 2000, lot 21), but they are probably younger. Nevertheless, like other northwest Persian lattice patterns, this type was influenced by 17th and 18th century Kerman models, as seen in surviving vase-technique examples. An older Azerbaijan carpet of the same group has an indigo field and clearer drawing, alongwith a border design copied from a late Safavid or Afsharid Kerman lattice carpet (SLO, 24 April 1991, lot 91).

But perhaps the most interesting carpet in the Blau auction was lot 103, a silk-foundation Bijar prayer rug 3, with inscription cartouches dedicating it to Nasir al-Din Shah’s brother-in-law Amir Kabir (Mirza Taqi Khan), the ‘father’ of the modern Persian state, who was prime minister from 1848-51. It is inscribed: “Offeredto he of blessed presence, ruler of the age, the noble, glorious, generous Amir Kabir, Chief Minister of the exalted state of Iran [by] Ali Riza Quli Garrusi”, and can be dated to his period in office (he was executed by the Shah two months afterwards). We may conjecture that it was presented to him when he married the Shah’s sister in 1850. Hugely underestimated at $20,000-$30,000 but of tremendous value as a historical document, it sold to the Massachusetts dealer John J. Collins for $144,000 (see HALI 150, back cover). As with the rugs discussed above, the Bijar was included in my thesis catalogue, but had not been studied before. It demonstrates a typical Qajar era practicewhere fine carpets were offered or dedicated to public figures, but prefigures the late 19th century vogue for dedicatory carpets in Garrus(A. Ittig, ‘A Group of Inscribed Carpets fromPersian Kurdistan’, HALI 4/1, 1982, pp.124-7), and is totally different from those younger Garrus carpets. Although I found other possible candidates, this fine rug is the only physical evidence known for Garrus weaving in the pre-‘Revival’ period. It

is likely that it either copied a pre-existing Safavid model, or represents a continued post-Safavid vogue for fine prayer carpets. Its design resembles one or more of the so-called Topkapı group of inscribed prayer rugs (J.M. Rogers& H. Tezcan, The Topkapı Saray Museum, Carpets, London 1987, especially pl.12), now thought to have been woven in Safavid Persia. It provides an interesting addendum to the corpus of information about the ‘Topkapı’ and ‘Salting’ groups of carpets (see J. Mills, ‘The Salting Group: A History and Classification’, in M.L. Eiland & R. Pinner, Oriental Carpet & Textiles Studies V/2, Danville 1999, pp.1-17), and further confirmation of a Persian source that pre-dates their now substantially discredited attribution to late 19th century Turkey. Without the Beattie Archive, it would have been far harder to acquire information on these three carpets. The concentration of carpet study material in the Ashmolean Museum, coupled with Oxford’s splendid libraries, make it the ideal study centre for carpets and textiles. It wouldtherefore be tragic if future students – or the widercarpet community in general – were to be deprived of the centre’s resources or the opportunity to research oriental carpets. Even though carpet studies may not be fashionable in museum circles, they nevertheless command keen attention among many individual academics, scholars, dealers and private collectors.

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